LSU's bitter blocker helps Covington dad create a new sports drink

Brian Brothers developed his concept for a new sports drink while watching a New Orleans Saints game. When a player was taken out of the game in the fourth quarter because of dehydration, even though he had been drinking Gatorade, Brothers didn't think that made any sense. How could the football player -- who was drinking a product that promised rehydration -- get dehydrated?

Ted Jackson/The Times-PicayuneBrian Brothers poses with his new product, a sports drink called EX5. He created the concept and teamed up with LSU researchers to develop the product, now available in Louisiana.

The question prompted Brothers, a single father residing in Covington, to start looking at the sports drinks his 5-year-old son drank after T-ball games. He was astonished by the amount of sugar in them, and he felt like he had to do something. His research led to the development of a new sports drink, EX5, which Brothers created using a flavor-enhancing compound developed by Louisiana State University. Bottles of EX5 hit local store shelves this spring.

What Gatorade and Powerade are missing, Brothers believes, are magnesium and calcium, both key components needed to restore the chemicals the body loses in sweat. The problem with those minerals, according to Brothers, is that they taste bad. But after teaming up with LSU, Brothers found his solution. LSU's John Finley recently developed a bitter-blocking compound that essentially masks bitter tastes in vegetables and beverages.

"They (LSU) had numerous options to sell this (bitter blocker) to whoever they wanted," Brothers said. "They chose to go with a Louisiana guy to create a flagship company for this state. We have a rich tradition of brands being developed in this state."

Finley is a professor and head of LSU's food science department. He discovered that a chemical compound extracted from a Chinese fruit, called the monk fruit, helped block bitter tastes in drinks and vegetables. He and his students experimented with it, putting the extract in different drinks like rum and wine. He said when they tasted the drink with the blocker, it tasted better and less bitter.

"It's always better to be lucky than smart, and we got lucky," Finley said. "It gives it a much smoother taste. This stuff was better than anything we had seen."

When Brothers called LSU looking for an opportunity to use the university's labs to develop a recipe for his sports drink, Finley wanted to help. He knew that a key problem with potassium, magnesium, and calcium is the bitter taste. People have the most problems getting potassium back into their bodies because it tastes horrible, Finley said. Big name brands like Powerade and Gatorade hide the taste of some of the electrolytes with sugar, but don't include magnesium and calcium, he said. Electrolytes are substances typically made of acids, bases or salts with free-moving ions that help the body rehydrate. The four electrolytes found in EX5 are some of the most common ions.

Finley worked with Brothers for about a year starting in 2010, creating a recipe that would include all four essential electrolytes: potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. Brothers said LSU wasn't paid anything to help him develop the drink but receives royalties from the sales of it. One other person has licensed LSU's bitter blocker, but Finley believes a product was not made with it. He does think that the bitter blocker could benefit many entrepreneurs, especially those interested in making beverages or bottling up the blocker to spray on vegetables.

"It has a lot of potential for a lot of products," Finley said.

The drink that Brothers and LSU's team created has 8 grams of sugar, compared with Powerade, which has 34. A bottle of EX5 has 35 calories compared to a Powerade bottle, which has 130, according to Brothers. After a recipe was developed and Brothers partnered with a long-time friend, Craig Hart, they started a company called H & B Beverages. They teamed up with Budweiser to distribute their sports drink originally in Baton Rouge, and then expanded to other areas throughout Louisiana.

"We are a start-up business," Brothers said. "We put all of our own money into it, we have no investors. We are two guys who cut costs where we can and we're going up against Gatorade and Powerade."

Currently, a lemon lime and a strawberry lemonade flavor are out in the market in stores across the state. A blue raspberry flavor will be released in July and a grape flavor in September. Bottles sell anywhere from $1.29 to $1.69. Brothers said EX5 costs three times more to produce than Gatorade and Powerade, but they are trying to keep the prices of bottles around the same as their competitors. The company is looking into releasing a 32-ounce bottle this summer.

Brothers wasn't always an entrepreneur. He went to college but didn't finish. He swept floors at Pepsi and moved into sales for the company. He spent some time working for MillerCoors after Pepsi, so he had experience and an understanding of the beverage industry. But he began creating EX5 by chance and is working toward making the product available in other states.

"I knew being a start-up company, I had to come out swinging hard," Brothers said. "I had to be so superior so that there was no question that I had a superior product."

Brothers has been working with local schools like Slidell High School and John Curtis High School, donating product to their athletic teams on game days.

Brothers met with John Curtis High School's football coach, J.T. Curtis, at the beginning of the most recent academic year. Curtis saw some merit to the product and took it to the athletic trainer who was impressed by EX5 and decided to experiment with it, Curtis said. The track team used it a week before the state track meet. The football team used it for seven days during spring training.

The football team had previously used Gatorade and Powerade, but Curtis liked the percentages of the four electrolytes better in EX5. Brothers donated the original 10 packs and the school purchased more for the spring and fall because the players liked the taste of it and it seemed to work. The real test of the product will come in the fall, Curtis said.

"We're going to use it again in the fall when it's hotter and more intense," he said. "We anticipate that it will do what it claims to do."